Immediately afterwards, Boris Yeltsin, the president of newly independent Russia, is scheduled to come to his Kremlin office to take formal possession of the suitcase, whereupon the two colonels will say their good-byes to Gorbachev and leave with Yeltsin. The communist monolith known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is breaking up into separate states.
At 7:00 p.m., as the world watches on television, Mikhail Gorbachev announces that he is resigning. So long as Gorbachev possesses the chemodanchik, he is legally the commander of the country’s strategic forces, and the Soviet Union remains a nuclear superpower. Any one of the devices is sufficient to authorize the launch of a missile, but only the president can lawfully order a nuclear strike. One is with Mikhail Gorbachev, another is with the minister for defense, and a third is assigned to the chief of the general staff. There are three nuclear suitcases in total. The job of the colonels - three are assigned to guard the case, but one is always off duty - is to help the president, if ever the occasion should arise, to put the strategic forces on alert and authorize a strike. It contains the communications necessary to permit the firing of the Soviet Union’s long-range nuclear weapons, many of them pointed at targets in the United States. This is the chemodanchik, or “little suitcase.” Everyone, even Gorbachev, refers to it as the “nuclear button.” Rather it is a portable device that connects the president to Strategic Rocket Forces at an underground command center on the outskirts of Moscow. The inscrutable colonels are the guardians of a chunky black Samsonite briefcase with a gold lock weighing 3.3 pounds that always has to be within reach of the president. They occupy two seats at the back of the aircraft when he travels out of Moscow, and they sleep overnight at his dacha or city apartment, wherever he happens to be. They ride in a Volga sedan behind his Zil limousine as he is driven to and from the Kremlin. These silent military men sit in the anteroom as he works in his office. They are so unobtrusive that they often go unnoticed by the president’s visitors and even by his aides.
The third part explains how Yeltsin began the climb to leadership of Russia, from where he was able to bring down Gorbachev.ĭuring his six years and nine months as leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev is accompanied everywhere by two plainclothes colonels with expressionless faces and trim haircuts. This is the first of three excerpts from Conor O'Clery's new book, "Moscow, December 25, 1991: The last day of the Soviet Union." The second part explains how Mikhail Gorbachev destroyed his rival upstart, Boris Yeltsin.
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